Lin Zexu was punished again for treating floods during the garrison. It was a bolt from the blue. He deeply felt that his ambition to serve the country had not been fulfilled, but he had been wronged. His heart was filled with sadness and indignation. He made a self-made seal and engraved the four words "forget all favors and disgrace", intending to throw away all the favor and humiliation of the emperor in the past. He was disheartened about his official career and hoped to do more good things for the people in the future. . On July 14, 1841, with a melancholy and sad mood, he said goodbye to his friends who came to see him off one by one, and sadly left Zhenhai by boat. However, after all, Lin Zexu had been a high-ranking official and was not a mediocre person. As long as he had the opportunity, he would still "take responsibility for his crimes and make meritorious services." While passing through Yangzhou, Lin Zexu received an order from Emperor Daoguang, asking him to postpone his trip to Yili and first go to Kaifeng, Henan to help control floods. It turned out that in early August of this year, the Yellow River surged and the Xiangfu embankment in the northwest of Kaifeng burst, flooding more than ten counties in six prefectures in Henan and Anhui. The city of Kaifeng was besieged by floods. Local officials were horrified and helpless. The Qing court urgently ordered Wang Ding, the military minister, to rush to Henan to control the flood. Wang Ding was a close friend of Lin Zexu. He took the opportunity to propose to Emperor Daoguang that Lin Zexu had served as the governor of the East River and was an expert in river management. He could go to Henan to help complete the task of blocking the breach. Wang Ding's request was approved by Emperor Daoguang. After receiving the order, Lin Zexu rushed to Kaifeng City and immediately came to the dam construction site to start the river control project. He rushed around day and night, personally supervising and leading the migrant workers to carry earth and build the dam. After six months of hard work, on March 19, 1842, the dam mouth was finally closed, and the flood damage was controlled. It was Emperor Daoguang's promise to Lin Zexu to go to Kaifeng to regulate the river and "atone for his sins", but this promise from the holy mouth was not fulfilled. Lin Zexu made the greatest contribution by blocking the breach of the Yellow River and should be rewarded and exempted from crime. Wang Ding also reported to Emperor Daoguang that Lin Zexu was serious and effective in managing the river. In terms of merit, rewards should come first. He asked the emperor to revoke his punishment and entrust him with important tasks. However, Emperor Daoguang actually broke his promise and issued an imperial edict to continue punishing Lin Zexu on the day when the river was merged with the dragon: "After Lin Zexu merged with the dragon, he still went to Yili." Although he felt shabby, he could not disobey the emperor's order, so Lin Zexu could only continue on the road westward. , embarked on the difficult journey to Ili. During the trip, Lin Zexu stayed in Xi'an for three months due to illness. After he recovered from the illness, he said goodbye to his wife who had traveled thousands of miles to see her off, and continued to march to Ili accompanied by his two sons. When he said goodbye to his family, he wrote an eternal famous saying: "If you live and die for the benefit of the country, how can you avoid it because of misfortunes and blessings." On December 10, 1842, Lin Zexu finally arrived in Yili after untold hardships. In Yili, the most unpleasant thing for Lin Zexu mentally was losing the freedom to communicate with his family, relatives and friends. As an official who was exiled to the border fortress, Lin Zexu's words and deeds were closely monitored, and even his correspondence had to be opened and inspected, and some were even returned. In order to maintain normal communication with his family and friends, and to understand national events and coastal defense situations, Lin Zexu received great help from Ili General Buyantai, who borrowed official envelopes to send Lin Zexu's letters to the customs. In addition, Buyantai also asked Lin Zexu to borrow an internal material called "Beijing News" that was only allowed to be read by serving officials. In this way, Lin Zexu continued to keep in touch with his family, teachers and friends in the border area thousands of miles away, and was able to continue to understand the current situation and national affairs. Since these information and materials were hard to come by, Lin Zexu regarded them as treasures, copied and edited them one by one, and compiled them into two volumes of "Ya Zhai Miscellaneous Records" and a notebook titled "Ruan Chen Private Discussion", which somewhat diluted some of them. Depressed mood. After Zexu arrived in Xinjiang, he not only saw the ambitions of Tsarist Russia, but also witnessed the desolate scene here. Lin Zexu believed that the best way to strengthen border defense and improve people's lives was to prepare borders with farmland. He suggested allocating cultivated land to the local Uyghur people for farming, and changing the original garrison system to a defense system, so that the border garrison would be engaged in both cultivating the land and conducting military training, so as to achieve the integration of garrison and border defense, and the integration of soldiers and civilians. , built a copper wall and an iron wall on the northwest frontier. In order to develop agricultural production, Lin Zexu asked General Buyantai to reclaim wasteland, and Buyantai accepted this opinion. Starting from the autumn of 1843, Lin Zexu worked tirelessly with his old and sick body and became a "Foolish Old Man", responsible for reclaiming the Aqiwusu wasteland east of Huiyuan City. This is an extremely arduous and arduous project. To turn barren land into fertile farmland, channels must be dug and water diverted for irrigation. Lin Zexu led the migrant workers to excavate sand and gravel, build dams and embankments, which took a full year and four months and more than 100,000 workers to finally build a 6-mile-long main canal. After the canal was built, it created extremely favorable conditions for local land reclamation, and the farming achieved significant results. By November 1844, Lin Zexu had reclaimed a large amount of wasteland: 33,350 acres in the Aqiwusu area and 161,000 acres in the Alebs area. After Lin Zexu's land reclamation was successful, Buyantai wrote a memorial to Emperor Daoguang saying: Lin Zexu has made commendable achievements since arriving in Yili. He is a good official. There is no one better than Lin Zexu in his life. , It is a pity that such a useful talent was abandoned at the frontier fortress, and it is requested that he be forgotten and reused. However, due to the obstruction of the capitulation faction, Emperor Daoguang not only failed to adopt Buyantai's suggestion, but instead ordered Lin Zexu to continue to reclaim wasteland in southern Xinjiang. Seeing that Lin Zexu was old and sick, Buyantai asked with concern: Would he rather go far away or stay close? Lin Zexu replied without hesitation: "Lin would rather go far."
After setting off, Lin Zexu visited one city after another. Within a year, he arrived at nine border towns including Kuqa, Wushi, Aksu, and Khotan. He traveled more than 30,000 miles and covered the vast areas in the north and south of the Tianshan Mountains, surveying and surveying. The total cultivated land is 689,718 acres. In about two years, from the autumn of 1843 to November 1845, Lin Zexu, with the strong support and close cooperation of the people of Xinjiang, opened up 884,068 acres of farmland from all sides. There are books recording this achievement of Lin Zexu: "Because of Lin Zexu's survey and reclamation, the vast deserts of Xinjiang have turned into fertile fields. Farmers are facing each other with smoke from their cooking stoves, and the fields are full of cultivation. The soldiers and farmers are integrated into one, and every year they contribute to the country and province." There were countless funds, and the livelihood of the Hui people was thus abundant." Lin Zexu attached great importance to building water conservancy and improving farmland irrigation while reclaiming wasteland. In Turpan, he discovered a water conservancy facility called a "Kajing" (karez well) by the locals. He was amazed to see water flowing through holes in the soil. Later, after questioning the local people, I learned that this is a groundwater conservancy project that is adapted to local conditions, can be used for a long time, and has good results. He soon improved this irrigation method: digging more wells and canals, digging wells every ten feet, and guiding the paddy fields in a row to make the well water flow. And it was promoted to all parts of Xinjiang, making "stuck wells" appear everywhere in the Ili Valley like a sky full of stars. People in Xinjiang call the "stuck well" "Lin Gong Well" and the water channel "Lin Gong Canal" to express their deep memory and gratitude for Lin Zexu's benefit to the place. In addition, Lin Zexu also actively spread spinning technology in Xinjiang. The spinning wheels used by people in the mainland were introduced to cotton-producing areas such as Turpan very early, but they have never been taken seriously. Lin Zexu believes that cotton-producing areas like Turpan, where cotton is abundant and of good quality, should improve cotton spinning technology and improve spinning quality. Under his advocacy, spinning wheels were adopted in various places, which promoted the spinning technology in the mainland more widely. In order to commemorate Lin Zexu's contribution, the local people called the spinning wheel he promoted "Lin Gong Wheel". Lin Zexu, who traveled all over Xinjiang, drew many detailed border defense maps and specially sent them to Zuo Zongtang, the imperial envoy minister, which greatly helped Zuo Zongtang later regain Xinjiang.